A NEW initiative to encourage green travel in Hartlepool is looking for funding.

The borough council is to bid for money from the Government to employ two staff to coordinate green travel and school travel in the area.

The Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions has invited local authorities to apply for funding to pay for coordinators to oversee green transport initiatives.

If the bid succeeds, the coordinators will try to reduce public dependency on cars, reduce pollution and congestion, and encourage people to use more sustainable transport.

They will also target industry and business to get them to adopt greener travel habits as well as working with schools to produce travel plans for parents, pupils and teachers.

A council spokesman for said: "The Local Transport Plan proposes developing safer routes to schools and school travel plans with all the schools in the town and this programme has commenced.

"Some work is also under way on the development of Green Transport plans but progress is slow due to the limited amount of staff time that can be put into the projects."